Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
from the 16th floor
taken this morning – tried to get shots of the moon earlier as well – but without a tripod it was a failed exercise.
(having just looked at this on my mac – i have to say – this photo was edited on a windows machine and looks crappy in macland… what is the trick to having photos show up decent on both platforms? this totally drives me nuts…)
a fiction from the granville street bridge (part 2)
(this post follows this one)
in writing about this man, the artist who gave me the fifteen dollars to lie down beside him (and no, i did not have to touch, it was all about proximity), i have remembered one other thing he gave me in the morning as i swung my pack back on my shoulder. in front of me now (for i have always kept it), the medicine pouch of deer leather with its small pinch of sage and tobacco, holds an item i ferreted away at some point after my encounter with the artist. i felt it when i searched the pouch out from a tangled drawer – a small black stone shot through with quartz, rubbed smooth from being worn close to the skin in a small leather bag for at least two years. and now, feeling again, i find one more thing – a penny with my birth year on it (1973), also tucked away.
these tokens from my past almost forgotten tell me now i must have been a young woman who relied on some sort of luck or magic to inure me to the street. i feel the weight of these objects in my left hand as the right wields the pen – the weight of asking for a protective spell to survive each day, the weight of atheist prayer carried in a medicine bag gifted by a man contributing to my loneliness with his own.
i do not remember putting these objects in the pouch, though i know along the way that bitter winter i must have – living in a squat known as hamilton street that later burned down in a fire (long after i had left). lucky i was to find fellow travellers who were not so opportunistic, who i could fake out with a sneer as if i was really tough (and maybe it is true my anger did make me tough). when i remember it i recognize that although i knew people with places to live in the city, i chose instead to squat with strangers – it seemed easier than explaining i was coming apart.
but why? i don’t know – but all reeked cataclysm at the time – the death of a close friend, the end of a relationship, my cheap rent in an unheated basement room, people telling me over and over i was too reckless and thus too disrespectful. i don’t think i stood straight or sober a single day in two years from 18-20… and to think of the degree to which i used….. there were not many days where i did not think about calling it over as it seemed there was nothing but that emptiness, that desire for anonymity and ultimately escape, awaiting.
i carry this past like the weight of the stone, of the penny marking my year of birth, like the old man’s loneliness – mostly unnoticeable until another hurt is piled on and my nervous system begins to complain, to tremble with it all.
(for whatever reason this is coming out – it seems to be and so i will keep posting under this heading whatever is scribbled as it emerges – i want no one to take any of this as me being in a bad space… i am actually in a very good place right now – just writing a lot of interesting stuff as it turns out)
canoeing the coastal lakes
just ate yummy squashy leftovers – feeling good today… especially after doing some research on the powell forest lake chain canoe trip that my friend aaron and i are planning for some time this summer. yes, it is early to plan and all that but since he and i have it in our heads we will do another outdoor trip this year despite the events of our last trip (broke my ankle 4 days into a 5 day trip, had to be packed off the trail by paramedics etc… nasty nasty) – i have got the planning bug.
now, of course, i have done hiking trips since that one and have gotten over my fear of rooted paths and slippery ledges – but this year, in honour of moving to the sunshine coast… this lake chain trip seems like a spectacular option. it also gives me some good work-out goals towards upper-body strengths etc… a reason to go back to the gym beyond just being in good shape. so yes, this is exciting for me to consider… a 5 day 80 km trip by canoe with about 10 km of portages… i think i can work my way up to that in the next few months, especially as the route is marked novice and the portages are mostly downhill or at least flat!
so yes, there is a summer holiday in the planning stages – something to look forward to in the spring breezes currently lapping the coast (yes, i know there is still cold weather ahead – but it is surpisingly warm these past few days).
something has shifted in me again recently and i am feeling very good, centered and collected at the moment – a little strange, but a lot more forward-looking all of a sudden. i wonder what makes that happen.
squashy
so- the stuffed squash turned out to be amazing – everytime i eat spaghetti squash i think of my friend anna and a dinner she made at a house we lived in 13 years ago. odd association i know – but she made a kick-ass dinner out of a spaghetti squash…. and i never forgot it.
anyhow – this was a creation of my own and i have posted the recipe at our new recipe blog – http://cookbook.resist.ca/ – with pictures and everything!
like glue i tell you
i overslept last night and my brain has felt like it is wading through glue all day.
despite that i made a valiant effort at the book i am writing (i promised myself 3 hours a week on sundays to give myself some working structure) – did some research for it and made some notes…. they were poorly written notes (owing to the sticky brain) but i got the ideas down i needed to from the reading. (i don’t know if i have mentioned the book here before – it’s something i started three years ago and then failed to complete to any appreciable degree – a number of things have made it a priority to me that i get it done and published… mostly so i can leave it behind me).
managed also to unpack a bunch of books i have been storing for a friend (had to rearrange my office/storage area to fit them in). i still have to pull the rest of his books out of my basement but i’m waiting for a day that is less wet and possibly some help from someone because they are heavy. i forgot how much i appreciated this book collection until i started sifting through them. the nice thing is that he and i always did have different but very complementary book collections….. our personal and activist focuses are pretty evident when looking through them. i decided finally to put them on my shelves after storing them for quite a long time as they form the research basis for the book i am writing.
it feels like all i do these days is read and write and occasionally work on my rug (which is almost finished… ) – every surface of my home has books open and marked – ready for the research paper, the book, or just my own enjoyment time. i don’t remember a time before where i was pursuing so many different intellectual pursuits (not to mention my own therapy which is a processing pursuit of its own) at the same time. i definitely think being slightly removed from the city and having a quiet home is lending itself to that – though i still have difficulty being self-motivated at times.
i am moving ahead with preparations to visit the southland at the end of february. the trip now looks like 12 days or so in a few different places…. but it is coming together as it should. my friend jake has offered to drive me down and aaron is seeing about transferring his air canada credit into my name. if both those things work out, that would make the travel portion of my trip very cheap. who knows though as every detail is still up in the air as i write this.
anyhow – david is on his way over for dinner… for which i have made a lovely stuffed squash. i will post a link to the recipe later…..
Red Cedar 